From the Second-Last Mile to the Last Mile

Author: Dilip Soman, University of Toronto

Julius Mugwagwa’s provocation argues persuasively that the Reach Alliance represents more than a program, network, or collection of projects.^[1] It embodies a different institutional logic — one designed for a world characterized by what he calls “wicked interdependences.” In such a world, the challenge is not merely generating knowledge, but building the relationships, capabilities, and collaborations necessary to translate knowledge into impact. As someone whose work sits at the intersection of behavioural science, development, and innovation, I find much to agree with in this vision. Indeed, I would argue that Reach is particularly powerful because it addresses what might be called the “second-last-mile” problem, while creating conditions that make solving the “last mile” possible.

My own research has long focused on the last mile — the gap between a solution that exists and its adoption, use, and sustained impact by intended beneficiaries.^[2] Whether we are discussing public health interventions, educational innovations, financial inclusion, or sustainability initiatives, the challenge is often not invention but implementation. A vaccine can be available but unused.^[3] A social assistance program can be well designed yet ignored.^[4] A technology can be effective and still fail to change behaviour.^[5] What field of study can be more wicked than trying to understand, predict, and influence the behaviour of humans, organizations, and societies?

Behavioural science examines how attention, motivation, habits, social influence, identity, and context shape human behaviour. But behavioural interventions themselves require an enabling environment. They depend on partnerships, trust, local knowledge, adaptive learning, and stakeholder engagement. In that sense, Reach’s focus on understanding how solutions reach marginalized populations is what I would call second-last mile work — creating the institutional, relational, and contextual foundations that allow last-mile solutions to succeed. Reach and behavioural science therefore operate as complements rather than substitutes. Reach helps us understand the pathways through which solutions travel; behavioural science helps us understand why people ultimately choose to adopt, reject, modify, or sustain those solutions.

This perspective also helps explain why I have always been attracted to co-creation as a model for research and teaching. In establishing the Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) Centre at the University of Toronto, one of my guiding assumptions was that knowledge should not flow in a single direction.^[6] The traditional university model can be caricatured as a pipeline. Academics produce knowledge, students absorb it, and governments, NGOs, and firms consume (and use) it. This model has produced enormous advances, but it rests on an assumption that expertise resides primarily within the university and that others are recipients of that expertise.^[7] The challenges described in this provocation demand something different.

First, co-creation improves problem definition. Many development and innovation failures stem not from poor solutions but from solving the wrong problem. Communities, practitioners, and policymakers possess forms of contextual knowledge that are often invisible to researchers operating from a distance. When those actors participate in framing the problem itself, interventions are more likely to address genuine constraints rather than assumed ones.

Second, co-creation improves implementation. Solutions developed with stakeholders are more likely to enjoy legitimacy, ownership, and trust. Behavioural scientists have repeatedly demonstrated that people are more likely to engage with interventions they perceive as relevant and self-endorsed rather than externally imposed. The same principle applies at an institutional level.

Third, co-creation improves learning. Traditional models implicitly distinguish producers from users of knowledge. Yet in complex systems, everyone possesses partial knowledge and everyone must learn. The most effective innovation systems are therefore less like supply chains and more like ecosystems, characterized by feedback loops, adaptation, and mutual learning.

Finally, co-creation develops exactly the relational capabilities that Mukwagwa identifies as essential for the future. Students who learn to work alongside communities, policymakers, and practitioners acquire skills that cannot be taught solely through lectures. These include listening, negotiation, humility, empathy, and the management of ambiguity. These capabilities may ultimately prove more important than mastery of any particular tool or framework.

At the same time, there is an additional lesson that experiential models such as Reach are uniquely positioned to teach. In behavioural science, we have increasingly come to recognize that no intervention always works. The search for universal solutions is often misguided because human behaviour is profoundly context dependent. Small differences in institutional environments, social norms, incentives, culture, timing, or history can produce dramatically different outcomes.

I have described the role of the behavioural scientist as resembling that of a cartographer rather than an engineer.^[8] Engineers often seek stable laws that generate predictable outcomes. Cartographers, by contrast, create maps that help people navigate complex terrain. The map is useful, but it does not eliminate the complexity of the landscape.

This distinction is especially important for educating future leaders. Students are often drawn to frameworks because frameworks appear to offer certainty. Yet the most valuable lesson may be learning to recognize when a framework no longer fits the circumstances at hand. Reach’s emphasis on field-based inquiry and engagement with real-world complexity exposes students to a critical truth about development and innovation: that successful solutions are often contingent, adaptive, and locally negotiated rather than universally applicable.

In this respect, Reach may be doing something more important than teaching students how to solve problems. It may be teaching them how to approach problems. Students encounter ambiguity, competing stakeholder perspectives, incomplete information, and unintended consequences. They learn not only to act, but also to observe, listen, revise, and learn. Those habits of mind are essential for addressing the wicked interdependences that characterize contemporary development challenges.

What excites me most about the Reach model is that it challenges several false dichotomies (teaching versus research; expertise versus engagement; global knowledge versus local knowledge; theory versus practice) that have shaped higher education for too long. The future is unlikely to reward institutions that excel at only one side of these divides.

Instead, the future may belong to institutions that can connect knowledge generation with knowledge application, global perspectives with local realities, and technical expertise with relational capability. From a behavioural science perspective, this is precisely where lasting impact is created. Reach’s contribution is not merely that it studies how solutions reach hard-to-reach populations. Instead it creates the conditions under which future researchers, practitioners, and leaders can learn how to navigate the complex journey from ideas to outcomes. If behavioural science concerns itself with the last mile, Reach is helping us understand and cultivate everything that comes just before it.

“[T]he future may belong to institutions that can connect knowledge generation with knowledge application, global perspectives with local realities, and technical expertise with relational capability. From a behavioural science perspective, this is precisely where lasting impact is created.”

– Dilip Soman, University of Toronto

References

[1] Julius Mugwagwa, “Wicked Interdependencies and Relational Futures in Education and Innovation: Why the Reach Alliance Is Ready,” Reach Alliance Faculty Mentor “Provocation,” Toronto, Summer 2026.

[2] Dilip Soman, The Last Mile: Creating Social and Economic Value from Behavioural Insights (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015).

[3] Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, et al. “A Megastudy of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor’s Appointment,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 118, no. 20 (2021): e2101165118.

[4] Jiaying Zhao, Saugato Datta, and Dilip Soman, eds., Cash Transfers for Inclusive Societies: A Behavioral Lens (Toronto: Rotman–UTP Publishing, 2023).

[5] Dilip Soman, ed., What Works, What Doesn’t (and When): Case Studies in Applied Behavioral Science (Toronto: Rotman–UTP Publishing, 2024).

[6] Dilip Soman, “BEAR: A Brief History,” Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR), 23 November 2023, University of Toronto.  biorgpartnership.com

[7] Omar Al-Ubaydli, Min Sok Lee, John A. List, and Dana Suskind, “The Science of Using Science: A New Framework for Understanding the Threats to Scaling Evidence-Based Policies,” in The Scale-Up Effect in Early Childhood and Public Policy Why Interventions Lose Impact at Scale and What We Can Do About It, edited by John A. List, Dana Suskind, and Lauren Supplee (New York: Routledge, 2021).

[8] Dilip Soman, “The Behavioral Scientist as a Cartographer,” Behavioral Scientist, 26 October 2025, https://behavioralscientist.org/the-behavioral-scientist-as-a-cartographer/; Barnabas Szaszi, Daniel G. Goldstein, Dilip Soman, and Susan Michie, “Generalizability of Choice Architecture Interventions,” Nature Reviews Psychology 4 (2025): 518–29.

About the Faculty Mentor Paper Series

This paper is part of the Reach Alliance’s second faculty reflection series, Is Reach the Model for Teaching and Research in the 21st Century?, in response to Julius Mugwagwa’s “Wicked Interdependences and Relational Futures in Education and Innovation: Why Reach Alliance is Ready.” Featuring contributions from leading faculty scholars across the Reach Alliance global academic consortium, the series opens a timely dialogue on the future of higher education, research, and innovation. Developed as part of Reach’s commitment to advancing research-to-impact and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, these reflections aim to engage higher education professionals in the emerging discussions around new models of teaching and learning, knowledge creation, and societal impact.